We cordially invite you to the next session of our workshop series on Authoritarian Politics and International Relations at WZB! Thomas Richter will talk about a new paper entitled "Regulate or Restrict? Classifying Legislation on Foreign Funding for Civil Society Organisations." (co-authored with Jessica Johansson and Silvia Rojas-Castro). Taking the increasing repression and shrinking space of civil society organisations in authoritarian regimes as a starting point, the paper investigates the formal legislation that curtails foreign funding of CSOs. In that regard, the authors go beyond a dichotomous measure of legislation and instead seek to understand and analyse the differences between various legal instruments used against CSOs. Building on the framework of proportionality analysis, the paper offers a new classification scheme to better understand the reasons why governments erected new legislation and why some of these measures truly restrict foreign funding but others only regulate the channel of externally financing CSOs. The paper has important implications for the influence of international and domestic efforts to safeguard civic space, which is key to the liberal world order.

The seminar series aims at bringing together scholars from Comparative Politics and International Relations. We invite papers combining comparative authoritarianism and IR, as well as contributions that help clarify important theoretical concepts and empirical patterns in either discipline. Colleagues interested in presenting in the workshop series should email Alex Tokhi (alexandros.tokhi [at] wzb.eu) or Alex Schmotz (alexander.schmotz [at] wzb.eu).